Simple, Reasonable Disengage/Retreat Rule

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Barnacle Bill:
Frankly, I don't have this big problem with faster ships being able to avoid combat. In real life, that is how it works. Faster speed plus longer ranged weapons in real life also means "the fast guy with long arms wins".

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Usually true, but there are some caveats:
1) If you run out of gas/forage/food/endurance, you get caught, even by a slower opponent.
2) You also get caught by a slower opponent if you get surrounded or trapped.
3) If the terrain doesn't allow you to use your speed, you can get caught.
4) Once you run out of arrows, your long-range bows are useless.
5) Forces that depend upon speed and long-distance weapons get decimated in a close fight.

[Jubala]

dmm, so true. That's why forces should be balanced with long range hitters and close range maulers. Not much point in that in SE4 for the moment imo.

[God Emperor]

I must agree with Talenn again regarding retreats. Although the current system is fairly unrealistic with respect to a retreating playing getting trapped in a corner, STRATEGICALLY it doesnt play out too bad. Also as has been pointed out, there are other oddities in the game system so this is not an exception.

I do like the idea though of factoring in ship speeds and relative supply levels. I know it would involve a bit of code but the following might help;

Include a retreat order option. If selected by a player, the code looks at the relative average speed and supply differences of the attackers warships and defenders (retreating player)ships (all ships, not just warships) and modifies the combat round length with 20 turns being the base. The calculated number could be kept hidden to keep a bit of suspense ("damn when is this combat round going to end", says the retreating player).
I would suggest that there be a minimum combat round length and a maximum (most players who want to retreat are usually dead by turn 30, so theres not too much point going beyong this).
The base 20 combat rounds would also help reduce the oddity of a tiny ship with 1 or 2 missiles taking out decent sized planet in one combat round.
Thoughts?

[AJC]

with the type of technology the ship engines in SE4 are at - just exactly where would you retreat to in the vastness of space? You cant create a warp point or warp away. You could outrun someone if you had the better engines and were not too damaged.. but thats about it...the only way to handle this would be to have running battles that Lasted several strategic turns, in other words the ships are locked in combat until they both leave the sector the battle is occuring in.
If you are crushing the enemy fleet - you wouldnt just allow them to retreat to the next sector - you would pursue them - unless there was a reason not to.

[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 18 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 18 January 2001).]

[Jubala]

I really don't care how it's done as long it is done and is somewhat logical and can't be abuse too easily. I just can't see no reason why a single frigate (for example) have to die when attacked by 25 battleships when it's clearly fast enough to run.

WWII would have been very interesting if a solid unpassable wall suddenly appeared behind the troops as soon the enemy was spotted.

- Sarge, they outnumber us ten to one, lets get the hell out of here.
- No can do corporal. They see us and the rules says we can't run then.
- That sucks sarge!
- Yeah, I know. Now charge them and hope you take one with you.

Doesn't sound like a likely scenario to me.

The way to get to your enemies fleet and kill it is to go after something your enemy has to defend. That way he'll either stay and fight giving you the chance to hurt him or he'll run and you'll still hurt him by taking/destroying what he was supposed to defend.

[Talenn]

Jubala et al:

Yeah, but WWII would have also been interesting if Naval Combat had had no inertia. Oh, and it would also be interesting if you werent allowed to fire until your enemy had done so..."Gee Sarge, they moved into range, can we bLast em now?"..."Easy Private, its not our turn yet. We'll get to fire as soon as they are all done"....

As you can see, tactical combat is an ABSTRACTION. Its not meant to be a 'realistic' space sim. What it does is give you the chance to pit your designs and tactics against the enemy's within the FRAMEWORK provided by the tactical engine. The 'no retreat wall' is simply another abstraction added in order to make the game work.

As I've pointed out before, there is going to be no simple way to implement retreats without screwing up the strategic game. I'd like to see them add something as an option so everyone can be happy. I just would NOT want to see it added without the option to turn it off. IMO, adding retreats without ALOT of other tweaking would result in an EXTREMELY boring multiplayer game.

If any of you ever played Lords of the Realm and LotR II, you might recall how easy it was to split your armies down, run in around the enemies territory and lay waste to their econ. Any time they tried to attack you, you just ran from the battle. It even included a 'morale penalty' for running, but a single army could still do it enough to ruin you. This is what would happen in SE4 too. Players would send fleet after fleet into your territory and never engage your fleets. You'd have to defend EVERY planet individually. I think the game would be HORRIBLE if a retreat system were to be tacked on.

The only way it could work IMO would be a pretty hefty re-vamp of the tactical engine, the ship design process (so smaller ships are faster and more maneuverable) and the strategic movement. Without those changes, the retreats will simply be another exploit for players to use.

Talenn

[Jubala]

Talenn, Yeah I know. It's an abstraction. And I agree WWII would have been very interesting if ships hadn't had inertia and the defender would have had to wait to fire until after the attacker.

For the record I don't really like the inertialess shipmovement in combat all that much but I can live with it.

But I really dislike the "I fire You fire" system we have now since it gives such a tremendous advantage to whoever gets to fire first. I have expressed this dislike in countless threads and suggested other systems I think would be better where both sides fire at the same time to eliminate the firstfire advantage. I won't go into detail here and now, but the bottomline is I'd be very happy if the combat system got an overhaul.

As for retreating ships/fleets causing havoc in your rear, that's what fixed defenses are for. And to avoid that you have stop them at the warppoints and that's what warp point defense is all about. And when conducting a warp point assault the only way to retreat would be back through the warp point. And if you don't want the enemy to run away from you need to have faster ships to run him down with and keep him engaged so he can't retreat and damage/cripple as many as possible for the main battleline to deal with once they catch up. That's what engine destroying weapons are for.

I think it can be done. I also agree it should be an option so those who want it can use it and those don't won't have to. I have seen many good ideas on how to implement it and with a little thinking and later testing I seriously believe it can be done and not be abusable.

Just came up with another idea on how to do it. Split every sector into quadrants (subsectors, whatever) with the center being surrounded by 8 adjacent quadrants. Like this:

XXX
XCX
XXX

Where your ships are at the end of combat is where they are in the sector after combat and their movement is limited by where the enemies ships are. A=Attacker who retreats, D=Defender, C=Center

Sectorquadrants:

XXX
ACD
XXX

Retreaters move choicies in systemsectors: C=Combatsector, B=Blocked, A=Available to move to, I=Chance of intercept depending on enemy orders.

AIB
ACB
AIB

With a kind of zone of control system like this (or related) the retreating player can't just sit out the battle and then move past the defender but has to circle around. That costs movement points which gives the defender a chance to intercept. It can still move back to where it came from which should be back home and if it isn't you're in trouble anyway. I'm not saying that this system alone would do the trick, it's just another idea the needs refining and combined with one or more of the others brought up here it should end up being a working system in the end.